


Dragon's Blood and Meadowsweet

by Musyc



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Community: hp_beholder, Developing Relationship, Draco Malfoy - character, Drama, F/M, Millicent Bulstrode - character, Post-War, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-26
Updated: 2009-11-26
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:09:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Musyc/pseuds/Musyc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Double, double toil and trouble;<br/>Fire burn and cauldron bubble.<br/>For a charm of powerful trouble,<br/>Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.</i><br/>Draco Malfoy takes an apprenticeship with a potions master after the war, and discovers the way to make a brew he never expected with a component he never considered. Side effects may occur; results may vary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dragon's Blood and Meadowsweet

> Rue:  
> Burn rue on a bed of charcoal to strengthen your willpower and to draw money.

_Mister Malfoy,  
Your qualifications are impressive and your training under Slughorn and Snape - a great loss, by the way, he is sorely missed - is of the highest standard. I understand your reasons for seeking employment, though you were most evasive in your introductory letter (Please note that I am far less gullible than a good many wizards and I do read the newspaper), and you may assure your Ministry liaison that your service with me will fulfill the terms of your probation. Your salary will, of course, be paid directly to the Death Eater Repatriation Fund, but you will be provided room and board along with my other apprentice, as well as a small discretionary allowance. Your contract will begin on Monday, six AM sharp. Any tardiness will result in dismissal. As your choices are employment or Azkaban, I suggest you be on time._

Jonathan T. Richter  
Master of Potions

Draco grimaced at his cheese sandwich as he recalled the letter that had brought him to the backwater village of Nowhere Important, Nowhere, Surrey. Apprentice. How _dare_ Richter. He had sent the letter requesting employment as a potions-maker. _Not_ as an apprentice. There was no reason, no reason at all, for any Malfoy to start at the bottom of any occupational ladder. He was skilled. He'd achieved the highest marks in every Potions exam, from the first quiz in Snape's class to the N.E.W.T. examinations he'd finally been allowed to take. He was an expert, despite his age. "An _expert_," he said, spitting bread crumbs as he thumped his fist on the table. "Not an apprentice. I'm not some sodding, pathetic Weasley."

"No, just pathetic."

The voice was deep, but held a feminine resonance, and he recognized it. He shuddered delicately and glanced over his shoulder. "Bulstrode. Don't tell me that _you_ are Richter's other apprentice. I should have picked prison."

"Technically, I'm a journeyman, but yes. And yes, you should have." Millicent set a flask full of a deep blue liquid on the table in front of him and folded her arms under her udders. God, they'd only got bigger since school. How she managed not to fall over from the weight, he'd never figured out. Though he assumed her arse balanced her somewhat. It was certainly big enough to balance things _on_. He realized she was still talking, and he rolled his eyes, but brought his attention back. He supposed it wouldn't be the best behavior to insult his co-apprentice on his first day. Not obviously, at least. "And Richter deserves a fucking award for taking you on after the shite you pulled in school, so keep that pointy nose of yours clean or I'll be talking to the Ministry faster than you can say Quidditch."

She picked up her flask and poured the contents onto his sandwich with a smirk, then whistled as she trundled away. Draco watched his sandwich sprout green, waving tentacles, and sighed as he shoved the plate away. Wonderful. He curled his shoulders and put his forehead on the table, muttering profanities under his breath, profanities that grew in volume and vehemence as he worked his temper into a froth. Damn the Ministry, damn his probation, and damn the Dark Lord for getting him into this trouble in the first place. He couldn't do this. He shouldn't _have_ to do this. He was a _Malfoy._

"You do realize that you're talking to a table. And I don't particularly think it cares that you're a Malfoy. Neither do I." Jonathan Richter, a rotund, bearded wizard, sat down across from him. Richter folded his hands and gave Draco a look that was long enough, steady enough, and piercing enough that Draco had to force himself not to squirm in his chair. "I took you on as a favor to your mother. Your letter meant nothing to me, and neither do your qualifications, regardless of my respect for your instructors. I hold no sympathy for you or for your actions during the war, and I am going to work you until your fingers are raw and you're too damned exhausted to move, much less contemplate any return to your previous activities. I promised Narcissa that I would keep an eye on you and keep you out of trouble, and that is exactly what I intend to do. I don't expect you'll enjoy it, and I don't give one damn. No matter what happens here, I can guarantee you that it's far more pleasant than Azkaban." He smiled tightly and stood up. "Welcome to your first job, Malfoy."

> Black Mustard Seed:  
> To sow confusion and discord between enemies. Walk backwards, twenty-one steps, in your enemy's trail, and sprinkle a powder of crushed seeds over his footsteps.

Something blunt hit him between the shoulder blades, then thumped to the floor. Draco felt the muscles at the back of his neck tightening as he took a deep, frustrated breath, but didn't look up from the nettles in his mortar. He kept the pestle moving, grinding the nettles into a thick paste. The charm he'd placed on the plants kept the spines of the nettles from mixing in as he worked, and he picked each out as he spotted them. The process was too delicate for gloves, even dragonhide ones, and the tips of his fingers were already red and tender.

"Once you've finished ruining those nettles," Millicent said behind him, her voice burrowing under his skin and prickling at his nerves worse than the nettles themselves. "Pick up your post. Rule three - never leave your workstation in a mess. You've already taken six demerits in the past month. It would be just terrible if you took another because you left a letter on the floor."

Draco slammed the pestle into the mortar and spun to face her, his fists curling at his sides. She always picked the worst moments to irritate him, and he'd been tired of it after a day. A month was too long to hold his temper, and he let it soar. "I wouldn't _have_ the fucking demerits if my fat bitch of a co-apprentice wasn't doing everything she could to make certain I earn them. I clean my station every day. _Every_ day. _Without_ magic. I scrub the station. I sterilize the flasks. I even line the knives up in order of size. And every morning when I come in here again, something's been bollocksed. I get it cleaned up _again_ most days before Richter gets in here, since he's a lazy slug-a-bed who rarely gets up before noon, but sometimes I miss something. Ingredients spilled, cauldrons stained. Whatever the fuck you think you can do to screw me over." Draco reached back and slapped at the mortar. It flew off the workstation and shattered against the wall.

Millicent smirked, standing with her hands on her hips and her elbows wide. The fall of her sleeves blended into her robes, making her look twice as wide. "That one you did on your own, Malfoy."

"For fuck's sake!" Draco stomped forward, getting as close to her face as her chest would allow him. "If you want me to quit, just say so. I don't want to be here either. I'm better than this. An apprenticeship? Crushing nettles and chopping daisies? A firstie could be doing this. Anyone with half a brain and opposable thumbs could be doing this. _You_ can do this."

He leaned in, staring at her eyes. They were brown, with a thin outer ring of a deep chocolate color and several small flecks of green scattered across her irises. This close, without the puffiness of her cheeks and the double chin to distract his vision, Draco realized her eyes were pretty. Lovely, really. He'd almost go so far as to say attractive, until they narrowed and she moved. Draco collapsed to his knees, choking and gripping his groin where a padded, fleshy knee had just been driven into his scrotum.

"I hate you," he heard her say over his gasps for breath. "I fought for a year to get this position. I wrote letters every week, I had recommendations from every employer and reference I could scrape up. I _begged_ for this job. And you waltz in here with your stupid, pointy nose stuck in the air and your _mummy_ asking for a favor, and you had a slot within a month. You're an arse, and you don't deserve to be here." She kicked the letter on the floor at him, snorting when he startled. "But even though I hate you, I haven't touched your workstation once. Whatever's going on to earn you demerits, I haven't done it. Quit if you want, but I'm not doing anything to make you. I know what your other option is, and while you don't deserve to be here, no matter how much of a little shit you are, you don't deserve Azkaban either. Work harder and stop blaming other people for your problems. You make a mess, clean it up yourself. Mummy can't always save you."

> Anise:  
> For protection and purification. A pillow stuffed with anise keeps away nightmares.

Lightning struck all around him, shattering flagstones and sending chips to sting and scrape at his exposed limbs. On his left arm, blood dripped from his elbow, obscuring the Dark Mark burned into his forearm. As it flowed, the skull's mouth opened and a long, black tongue flicked out, licking up each drop until the eyes burned red. A high, laughing voice rippled with the thunder in a sing-song, mocking rhythm reminiscent of a child's nursery rhyme. _You're mine, you're mine, your family is mine. You are mine, and your children are mine. I never end, I never die, and you will never be free of me. You deserve me, you failed me, and you will suffer for eternity._

Draco tried to turn and run, but his feet were trapped, Devil's Snare exploding from the flagstones and wrapping around his calves to hold him in place. More tentacles stretched up and snagged his arms, holding them out and palms up to the sky. Lightning struck his hands, searing through his blood and racing his heart. He threw his head back, tipping his eyes up to the sky. His jaw dropped open and he screamed at the thundering voice as it laughed and echoed around him.

Draco sat up in bed, sweat beading on his forehead, his hair sticking to his scalp. His chest expanded as he sucked in a gulping breath, and he expelled it on a sob. Curling his shoulders, he wrapped his arms around his upraised knees and whimpered, his face buried in the sheet twisted around his legs. He fought for breath, fought to keep from breaking down in weeping. Weak, pathetic, pitiful. He'd spent too much of his life like that, too much of his last couple of years at school like that, and he hated himself for allowing it to happen in his dreams as well. His entire body shook as he struggled to hold himself together.

A soft noise close by brought his head up so quickly that his neck popped, and his eyes locked on a large figure blocking his bedroom door, blocking the faint light of the single lantern in the corridor. For a moment, he was back in school again, back in the bathroom on the second floor with Myrtle hovering behind his shoulder and begging him to tell her what was wrong, what had happened. He turned from the sink and there was Potter, staring him down.

Draco scraped his sleeve across his face, rubbing a loose fist over his eyes. When he looked again, the shape was gone, and he shook his head. Hallucinations, night terrors, a piece of his dream that hadn't fully disappeared as he woke. Draco pushed it away, pushed it down into the back of his mind behind the shields that his mad Aunt Bellatrix had taught him to build, the shields around his thoughts that allowed him to lie to anyone, including himself.

He crawled out of bed, hitching his pyjama bottoms up around his waist and pulling the drawstring into a tight knot. With his wand clenched in a sweaty, shaking hand, he cleaned his sheets and pillowcase, drying the dampened fabric and eliminating the pungent scent of fear. Something flew over his shoulder and landed in the center of the bed, and Draco spun, wand pointed and face twisted in the same grimace he remembered from Potter's attack.

It was Millicent, shrouded in a long nightgown in a faded red, and she nodded towards the bed. Draco looked over his shoulder to see a small pouch that had spilled leaves and seeds over the sheets. He looked back to Millicent, trying to catch her expression in the poor light. She raised one hand in a dismissive gesture before he could speak. "It's anise," she told him, her voice rough with sleep. "Put it in your pillow and go back to bed. Stop screaming. Some of us actually enjoy doing our jobs and would like to be able to accomplish them without exhaustion."

> Thyme:  
> A tonic made of thyme increases courage over confrontations  
> and lightens the heart during difficult work.

Richter was no help at all. Draco had been working on his potion for two weeks, fiddling with it, adjusting proportions, and nothing was working. He'd melted three cauldrons already, and when he went to ask Richter for advice or assistance, the wizard told him the entire point of the exercise was simple.

"You're supposed to fail. Less than a dozen wizards in the past century could make that one successfully. You're too arrogant, too proud, and too convinced that you're too good for this work. If you ever manage to finish that potion, I'll call your apprenticeship over and make a public announcement in the Daily Prophet that you've surpassed my own abilities. Until then, keep working, keep failing, and stop whinging at me. Dismissed."

Draco gaped at Richter through that little, vile speech, a cold anger stinging through his blood. _Supposed to fail._ His hands shook and he curled them up in his robe sleeves. It wasn't the first time he'd been given an assignment he was never intended to complete. At least this time he wasn't risking his life. Just his pride, his confidence in his own skills, and his physical safety. The side of his face ached as a muscle jumped in the cheek that was still swollen from his last cauldron explosion. _Supposed to fail._

_Dragonshit._

"I'll do this," he snapped, both hands slamming onto Richter's desk with a force that stung his palms. "I'll do this, I'll make your sodding potion, and I'll shove it so far up your arse it'll leak out your ears. I'll never fail for _any_ master's amusement again."

Richter glanced up from a stack of parchments, and for half a moment, Draco thought he saw something in the man's eyes. Understanding, compassion, pity, he wasn't sure, and it faded as Richter spoke. "Still here? Go melt a cauldron, boy."

Draco growled and stormed to the lab he shared with Millicent. He spent a long while raging, beakers and stirring rods flung against the walls to shatter and ricochet splinters of glass back at him. Tiny cuts speckled his face and hands when he dropped to his knees in the debris, panting. He scrubbed his palms over his face, smearing blood over his skin and into his hair. He sniffed and exhaled sharply, puffing his cheeks as he slumped onto his heels.

"Certainly hope that made you feel better," Millicent said behind him, her mocking tone accompanied by the crunch of glass. A wide swath of cleared stone appeared in front of him as Millicent flicked her wand before crouching to look at him. "You're bleeding all over your robes, by the way."

"Bulstrode, I am not in the mood for your bitchery right now." Even he could hear the sullen whinge in his voice, and he jerked his hands away from her pudgy fingers when she reached for him. "Leave me alone, dammit. Go tattle on me to Richter. Get me some demerits, have my allowance docked to pay for this. Whatever you feel like doing. Just leave me alone."

"Richter's an arse." Draco was surprised enough by Millicent's statement that he didn't move when she took his hand and smoothed the tip of her wand across his skin. Each minuscule cut closed up and healed over almost without a trace, only the widest one leaving a mark on the back of his hand. "He's an arrogant arse," she continued. "Reminds me of you, actually. Bullheaded and practically convinced that he's got some sort of divine ability. Unfortunately, he's not too far off. His abilities _are_ outstanding. There's a reason I fought to get this position, and I suspect, despite your mum's request for a favor, there's a reason you wanted _this_ position to keep you out of prison. Could have picked any potions master in England, could have picked someone who was lazy and unconcerned, some idiot who let you do whatever you wanted. But you picked Richter."

Draco pressed his lips together as she released his hand and took the other, healing over those cuts. Millicent stayed silent, though a small smile twitched the corners of her mouth, and finally Draco huffed in annoyance, looking away from her lips and pretending he hadn't noticed they were more full than fleshy, with a pleasing softness in the lower and an impertinent Cupid's bow to the upper. "He's the best. Snape would talk about him from time to time, and it was never in his usual insults. I'd swear he sounded approving, if he ever approved of anyone."

Millicent snorted and turned his hands over, running her fingers across his palms and knuckles. She found another cut, thin and barely pink, and smoothed the pad of her thumb over it before tracing it with her wand. "Sounds familiar. That's how he used to talk about you." She looked up to meet his eyes and Draco found he was holding his breath. "Snape praised you, you know. When I'd do extra work, if I made a mistake? Malfoy's better at this, he'd say. Malfoy's so much better."

She gripped his wrist tight and shoved up his sleeve, exposing the faded tattoo in his forearm. Draco hissed and yanked back, but she held on until he thought he could feel bones grinding. "Malfoy has a future ahead of him. He could be one of the best in the world, Miss Bulstrode, unlike you. It is truly a shame that he'll end up living someone else's future, if he doesn't die for it first." Millicent dug her fingers into his arm, her nails scraping shallow tracks that oozed red across the black Mark. "Pure blood is worthless when it's spilled for a worthless cause."

Draco jerked away, falling back and bruising his hand when she released him without warning. He scrambled to his feet, cradling his arm to his chest, hiding the Mark against his robes. "That wasn't Snape."

Millicent dusted her hands together and looked up. "No. That was me." She got up, far more gracefully than he had and far more gracefully than he'd expected from someone of her size. "You made the wrong choices, Malfoy. Too many bad ones. Picking Richter to study under, that was finally a good one. You've a chance now." She paused at the door, looking back at him. "Stop fucking it up, would you?"

> Horehound:  
> An oil made from the leaves of horehound, stroked across the brow,  
> will aid in concentration and clear one's thinking.

Draco sat on the steps at the rear of Richter's house, a mug of thick milky tea cradled in both hands. Richter had a large garden that backed onto woods, and in the dawn chill, fog danced around trees and through patches of dark, tangled undergrowth. Draco stared at the fog, his fingers twitching on his mug, gripping and re-gripping the warm ceramic. Dementors no longer guarded Azkaban, and the Dark Lord's promises to them were broken at the end of the war. They'd disappeared, scattered into nowhere with nothing left but the echo of their screams. He didn't want to wonder where they'd gone, but a twist of a breeze made the fog spin into a leering grimace, and he shivered, his shoulders hunching into his robes.

"Budge over," Millicent said beside him, then sat without waiting for him to move. The steps weren't quite wide enough, and Millicent's upper arm pressed against his. The curve of her hip brushed him as she settled into position with her own cup. Draco didn't move. She was warm and -- the face in the fog met another, gaping mouths locking together and dissolving with a sucking sound added by his imagination - she was alive. "The hell are you doing out here?" she asked him after a long sip of her tea. "You never wake up before nine. You hate waking up before _noon_."

Draco's fingers shifted on his mug, and he stayed silent for a long moment. Millicent took a breath to speak again and he spoke before she opened her mouth. "Couldn't sleep," he said, eyes locked on the trees and the fog. "I'm usually awake at this hour. I just don't get up."

"Awake?" Millicent cradled her cup in a mirror image of his own posture, resting it between her palms. "Or _still_ awake?"

He felt his jaw tighten and his molars grind. A muscle jumped in his cheek. He sipped at his tea to fill his mouth so he couldn't talk and give away more than he wanted. Millicent talked for him.

"Insomnia. Nightmares." She brought a hand to her face and brushed one finger under her eye. "Dark circles. Pale skin, paler than normal, that is. Shaking hands. Lack of concentration, difficulty thinking. Either you've developed some bizarre disease you haven't told Richter and me about in hopes you'll infect and kill us - slowest, most pathetic form of murder ever, by the way - or you're having problems like you did back in school." She sipped her tea again, apparently ignoring the stiffened spine he hadn't been able to stop.

"Sixth year," she continued. "You didn't do a great job of hiding it, really. We all knew something was wrong. Nott was running a book on whether you'd die by the end of the year. Odds were good that you would."

Draco laughed under his breath, laughed without any humor. "I know. Crabbe told me. Bet on myself, actually. Would have cleaned up if he hadn't lost the sodding receipt." He swished his tea around his mouth before swallowing hard. "Fucker."

"He didn't." Millicent's voice was too amused, and when Draco looked at her, she was grinning at him. One of her canine teeth overlapped the tooth next to it and made her smile look lopsided. Draco thought it was fascinating. Should have ruined her smile, but instead made it stand out. "Vince didn't lose your bet. I bought it off him for one of my Mum's seven-layer gooseberry cakes. He sold you out cheap." The corners of her eyes crinkled up, her cheekbones rounded as she laughed, and she nudged his shoulder. "Made a pack of money off it, though. Thanks for placing the bet for me."

Draco took another sip of his tea, finishing it off as he stared at the woods. The fog was starting to lift, and so did the corners of his mouth. He glanced sideways at Millicent and nudged her shoulder in return. "Fucker."

She laughed and tossed the remains of her tea into the grass by the steps. Setting the cup down, she shook her head, then leaned back on her hands, stretching her legs out. Draco's attention drifted from the trees to Millicent's bare feet, toenails varnished a surprisingly bright purple, ankles even more surprisingly slender. "Good god," he said, staring at her legs. "How do you walk without twisting those all the time? Figured you'd have legs like an elephant, considering how big you are everywhere else."

Millicent went still beside him. Slowly, she drew her feet back under her robes and sat up straight. She leaned away from Draco, took a deep breath, then got up without a word and went back into the house. Draco's shoulders tightened as he expected to hear the door slam, but instead there was nothing but a soft click that somehow managed to seem even more angry. He set his mug down and put his elbows on his knees, locking his hands behind his neck as he stared at the ground. The first semi-friendly conversation they'd managed to have since he'd started working for Richter, and that's how he'd decided to end it. He shut his eyes and made a face at himself. "Fucker."

> Eucalyptus:  
> Steep eucalyptus leaves in a bath for personal cleansing after contact with evil  
> and to drive away pestiferous people.

Draco didn't see Millicent for more than a few minutes at a time over the next several days. Either she'd run tattling to Richter or Richter had overheard them or Richter just automatically assumed that whenever something went wrong it was Draco's fault, but he'd been assigned a week's worth of grunt work, scrubbing the labs and the rest of the house from top to bottom, without magic. Draco was particularly disturbed by the state of Richter's loo. The man might be a genius when it came to potions, but he absolutely could not aim. Draco had to clean the bathroom twice, the first round while trying not to gag, and the second round after he failed at that and sicked up in the sink. He finally washed the last wall and swept the last floor, and Richter gave him a sniff of dismissal after an inspection. Draco headed for the bathroom he shared with Millicent, desperate to take a long soak. He'd barely had time for much more than a five minute shower every morning, the number of chores assigned leaving his days full and his nights dreamless, exhaustion closing his eyes as soon as he dropped onto his pillow.

The bathroom door was shut, and when Draco twisted the knob, it was locked. He shook it, grumbling. "Bulstrode, whatever you're doing in there, hurry it up. And if you're dropping a Bludger, burn a candle or something, would you? I've already thrown up once this week."

"I can hear you," she said, and Draco flinched. He hadn't realized she could understand his mutters through the door. He barely understood her, though, because her voice was thick and much rougher than usual. He leaned a shoulder against the door and tipped his head to it so he could hear better. "Go away, Malfoy. You can wait your turn. I can't hurry with these big elephant legs of mine, need a levitating charm to haul them out of the tub."

Draco flinched again. He'd tossed plenty of insults in that vein at her since he'd started his apprenticeship, and even more than that when they'd been at Hogwarts together. It had never bothered him before, but he'd never bothered to think about it. Her reactions hadn't mattered to him, her opinions hadn't mattered. She was just that fat girl sitting in the common room somewhere, just some female version of Crabbe or Goyle, a big and mostly silent presence. An unshaped blob in black robes that he vaguely noticed. Now she was a co-worker, a co-apprentice, his only source of conversation, and someone who was turning out to be more than a blob.

She was someone who had lovely eyes, a stand out smile, and legs that were on the chunky side, but still went on for miles. And she was someone that he'd insulted for no reason other than that he could. "Oi, Bulstrode," he said through the door. "I, er. I just wanted to apologize, actually. I'm sorry. For what I said before. About your legs. They're not all that big, really."

"Oh, sod off, Malfoy. I'm not an idiot. I'm also not blind. I know what I look like, and I know damn well what you see. What everybody sees." There was a thump against the door, the soggy, squishy thump of a flannel smacking into wood at full force, and Draco leaned away from it. The action almost cost him Millicent's next words. "Like I even care," she muttered, but Draco pressed his ear to the door and heard the deep, sniffling breath that put the lie to what she said.

"Bulstrode, come on." He jiggled the door handle again. "If you're crying, I don't want to know about it. Not worth it, you know. You call me an arse all the time, what the hell do you care about my opinion? I said I was sorry."

"I don't want your apology. Go _away_!" This time the thump against the door was much more solid, and Draco determined it was probably the soap. Unless Millicent had a tendency to take floating toys into the tub with her, Draco figured she was out of things to throw. He jiggled the handle one more time, then narrowed his eyes at the door as he heard the splashing that portended someone emerging from a tub. He drew his wand. He was perfectly familiar with bursting in on people who didn't want to be bursted in on. The question was whether he was mentally prepared to see what was bound to be acres of Millicent.

He'd seen worse, he decided. And if he was going to apologize, she was damn well going to accept it even if he had to hex it down her throat. Still, he counted to twenty, giving her enough time to get a towel or seven around her. Draco snapped his wrist and broke the lock on the door, then shoved it open. He stood on the threshold, wand pointed and jaw dropped. Millicent stood with her back to him, naked, water dripping onto the tiles from her hair. Hair that dangled almost to her knees. That was his first shock. She always wore it in braids or buns while working and he'd had no idea it was that long or that thick, even sopping wet.

His second shock was the curves of her figure. She was big, no denying that, but the hourglasses that held the points jewels at Hogwarts could have been modeled on her body. Millicent's waist dipped in a good hand-span over her hips, and for one moment he wished Crabbe had never died, so he could smack some reality into the bloke for ever saying Millicent had a flabby arse. She had a remarkably grippable arse, it looked like, and Draco felt his mouth go dry. Small wonder, since it had been hanging open for several seconds.

Plenty long enough for Millicent to point a wand over her shoulder and shout a hex that flung him back into the hallway, his head thudding against the wall. When he managed to get the glaze out of his eyes and his brain, Millicent was standing over him, wrapped in a thick blue robe. There were two tracks of water on her cheeks, tracks that weren't from her bath, but from her reddened eyes. "Bathroom's all yours, pervert," she said, kicking him in the leg. "Last ogle you're getting, hope it was a good one. Don't be blaming me for your nightmares, either, or you'll get another hex, and it'll guarantee that you'll be the last fucking Malfoy in history." She stalked down the corridor to her room and slammed the door.

> Fennel:  
> Chewed fennel seeds sweeten the breath and strengthen the heart  
> against those who seek to cause discord.

He stepped into the lab, mug of tea in one hand, the remains of his breakfast bun catching in his throat as he startled at the sight of his work table. Under it, rocking side to side in a slow, serpentine rhythm, there was an arse. A wide, curved arse draped in black robes - robes that were rucked up around shapely calves. Draco moved quietly, settled his feet on either side of a pair of ankle-high boots that looked to be made of a very soft leather, and set his mug on the table with a heavy clunk. The arse in front of him stopped moving and Draco heard a quiet profanity from under the table. "Bulstrode," he said, stirring his tea. _Tick, tick, tick_. "Bulstrode, I am convinced that you actually have a decent body. I think voluptuous might even be applicable. Admittedly, I didn't get a good look at the front, but I have seen this rather clearly, and I liked what I saw." He bent his knee and nudged her hip. Another profanity emerged from under the table, accompanied by the thud of a palm slapping the floor in annoyance. "You didn't have to go on all fours to show me, though it's a good position for being a temptress. Frankly, I'm surprised at you, thought you hated me."

He reckoned he had about thirty seconds before she scrabbled out from under the desk and whipped around to claw at his knees. Draco didn't move. After he'd broken into her bath a few days prior, and what he'd just said to her, he figured she deserved the opportunity to smack him around a little. He'd said it specifically to give her a reason to get angry with him, get a little of her own back. He braced for it, leg muscles tensing from ankle to thigh.

Millicent didn't move. Or she moved, but not how he expected. She twisted to look back at him, one of her pigtailed braids fallen out of its loop and in front of her face. "I did hate you, Malfoy. It was a _little_ less recently, but I think today's just given you another ten points on the Reasons You're A Bastard list." She shifted her foot and kicked him in the ankle. "Move back. I figured out why you're having so many problems keeping your work area clean."

Draco raised an eyebrow and moved back with a little limping hop. Millicent wriggled out from under the table and settled back on her heels. She raised one hand to flourish a small, wriggling gnome-like creature wearing a pair of trousers and nothing else. The thing spat and squirmed, pulling faces and flicking rude gestures at Millicent. "Kobold," she said. "Sort of like a house-elf, but quite a bit meaner." She shook the creature and shifted her grip to the back of its neck, holding it like a kitten. The kobold stopped fighting, but continued making faces, growling at Draco in what sounded like German. "At least, they're quite a bit meaner if they're treated rudely. They're usually rather helpful little creatures."

She got to her feet, and Draco again tried not to notice that she did so quite gracefully for her size. Millicent popped the kobold into a tall glass beaker and put a book on the top to keep it from escaping. She folded her arms under her breasts and leaned against the table. Draco made efforts to concentrate on the kobold in the beaker, rather than on the fact that Millicent had chosen to wear robes that were slightly more low cut than he was used to seeing on her. She was shorter than he was, though not by much, but it was enough for him to get a good look down her cleavage. "The kobold is what's been messing up your station, breaking your things. Leaving everything in a mess all the time. Richter has a couple of them, inherited from his parents."

Draco stared at the little creature in the jar as it poked one gnarled finger against the glass and mouthed imprecations at him. It made a loutish gesture his direction, one hand in a loose fist, pumping at groin level. It nodded at Millicent and smiled wide, showing off yellowed teeth, as its fist gave an emphatic jerk. Draco made a face and the kobold laughed. Even with the barrier of the glass, Draco could tell it was an especially nasty laugh. He attempted to ignore it and looked at Millicent, who was giving him a look that wasn't much more pleasant. "So he's been fucking with me. Why? Did I irritate him?"

"For fuck's sake, you don't even know." Millicent shook her head and raised her hands to her head, loosening her long braids to fall down her back. "You're not exactly polite to the lower orders, are you, Malfoy? Richter leaves a bowl of milk out every night in the kitchen. It's empty every morning, and the bowl's put away in the cupboard. But something tells me that our little kobold isn't getting its treat."

"Is that what that was? Good god, I thought Richter was going senile. That's disgusting. You know milk goes sour if you leave it out."

"So you've been dumping the milk before the kobolds could get to it. Taking their gift away. They're helpful when they're treated properly, and you've been stealing from them. You should be counting yourself lucky that all they're doing is messing with your station. You could have pissed them off enough that they'd mess with you personally." Millicent smirked and inclined her head, her eyes focused on Draco's fringe. "Could have put dye in that shampoo you use so much of. Could have put something nice and disgusting in your _bodywash_, what the fuck sort of man uses that anyway? You have a _loofah_."

Draco wrinkled his nose and glared at her. "I care for my hygiene. And I have sensitive skin." Millicent snorted and Draco rolled his eyes. "This isn't about my bathing rituals." Though they'd need to come back to that later. He was quite curious as to why she'd noticed so much. "It's about this damned kobold. So he's screwing me over. Two questions, then. First, what do I need to do to get him to stop? Second, why do you suddenly care? Decide I'm not so much of a bastard after all?" Draco stepped up and reached around her to pick up his tea, noting the way she tensed when his hand came too close. The look in her eyes wasn't the wariness of apprehension, though. At least, not fearful apprehension. She wasn't afraid that he might touch her. Draco sipped his tea and watched Millicent's face. She wasn't afraid. She looked almost ... confused. Bewildered in a way. He wondered if it had anything to do with the compliment he'd given her arse when he first walked in, the lack of insults. To test, Draco deliberately let his gaze drift down from her face to her chest, lingering on the valley of her cleavage.

He told himself that it wasn't his fault - he couldn't help it that he looked. Millicent had huge breasts. A couple of months previous, he'd called them udders. Pendulous. Bags of fat. His memory of the body he'd seen in the bathroom changed his vocabulary now that he was giving them a proper look. They were impressive, they were glorious, they were fantastic. They were practically beautiful, and --

"Malfoy. My face is up here."

When his eyes came up again, body reacting with a disquieting slowness to his mind's command, her expression had hardened. Millicent shoved the book off the beaker and rescued the kobold. She stalked out of the room with it on her shoulder, and it looked back to him with a smug face and a demented laugh.

> Blackberry:  
> Weave blackberry brambles into a wreath to symbolize a protective circle around the home and hearth.

"We've been out here for hours. It's dark. I'm tired, and I'm hungry, and Richter is a _sadist_."

Millicent, walking ahead of him through the thick woods, stopped in the middle of the path and turned to face him, her wand raised with its glowing tip pointed directly at his face. The wand-tip, the flash of light. His memories screamed, bracing for the expected flare of slicing pain as Draco flinched, stepping back and tripping over a root. He caught himself against a tree, scraped his palm on the bark, and glared at Millicent, covering the anger at himself and his memories with an irritation that she didn't deserve to have thrown at her. "Well, he _is_."

"You are such a whinger. Shut up. We're out here for a reason."

"Yeah. The reason being Richter's a sadist."

Millicent growled, deep in her throat, a growl that caught the attention of both his mind and his body. Draco was distracted enough with giving his cock a startled 'what the hell are you thinking' mental scolding that he missed the beginning of Millicent's lecture. "And if you think that we're out here doing this for fun and bonding, think again. I'd be much happier if you were back at the lab and nowhere near me, thanks. Tromping around in the woods with you is not the way I wanted to spend my Saturday evening. You are _seriously_ a whingy little bitch."

Draco snarled and drew his own wand, casting a _Lumos_ before he shoved past Millicent on the path. With the vague stirring in his trousers, the last thing he needed was to be following behind her arse as it swung when she walked. She had an incredible walk. Back and forth, side to side, and there was a gentle swaying motion that on a woman half her size would have blokes chasing her down the street. On a woman her size, it was twice as effective.

There were quite a few things that Draco regretted having done in his life, and he had to add a new one to that list. Breaking in on Millicent in her bath was becoming quite a regret for him. Not because he'd done it or because it annoyed her or because the headache resulting from the hex she'd thrown at him had lasted for almost four days, but because he couldn't get the image of her out of his mind. He couldn't forget the expansive curves of her body. They were usually hidden under shapeless robes, disguised with yards of black fabric, but he'd seen them only too clearly that day. Today, tromping through the woods in search of blackberry patches for both fruits and brambles, her curves were covered with a pair of canvas-like trousers. Not covered well enough. They were evident, obvious, and attention-grabbing.

Too much. Far too much of a stunning walk. He never saw it at the lab because the house wasn't that big and he was too busy to watch her walk the few steps from room to room, but out here in the woods, following behind her for a few miles, it was there. Draco laid a hand against his groin as he walked and ordered his cock to stop thinking about her arse. Even if it was relatively impressive.

Distracted by trying to talk his erection down despite his mind's pin-sharp focus on attempting to decide on the exact shape of Millicent's breasts, Draco lost track of where he was going, his feet moving automatically on the path. By the time he looked up and paid attention to his surroundings, his cock was still and Millicent was no longer behind him. He stood in a widening of the path that was barely big enough to call a clearing, and while there were plenty of wet leaves, muddy rocks, and bulging, knotted trees, there was an absolute dearth of tall, large, long-haired and low-voiced witches.

Draco turned on his heel, moving in a circle to scan the clearing. Nothing. No sign of her. No trace of Millicent. "Bulstrode?" he asked the trees. "Bulstrode, where are you?" Nothing answered him except a rustle in the leaves. Draco's shoulders tightened before he could assure himself that it was a mouse or squirrel or some other small creature skittering through the undergrowth. _Not_ what his imagination told him was a tiny rodent with a dozen legs and inch-long fangs that gleamed more than its beady eyes. Just a mouse. "Bulstrode?" He raised his voice, calling down the path he'd come from -- if it was.

The dark woods encroached on the weak _Lumos_ off his wand, leaving him only a few yards to see, but it was enough to see three different paths leading from the clearing. Which one he'd used, he didn't know. He hadn't paid attention. He'd spun around. He didn't know where he'd entered the clearing, and he didn't know how to get back.

Chilly air moved and mixed with warmer temperatures off the ground, and Draco looked down to see fog swirling at his ankles. "Bulstrode?" he called, watching the fog thicken with a sick fascination. For it to grow so fast, there must be a creek nearby. He couldn't see it, couldn't hear it, but he couldn't hear much over his heartbeat rolling in his ears. The fog was rising, the rodents were scrambling through the undergrowth. Draco felt his breath coming faster, the old scar across his chest aching as he struggled for air.

There were faces in the fog again. Faces squirming along the ground, faces spinning and locking together, empty eyes and screaming mouths fixing on each other like a compass finding north. The skittering in the undergrowth got louder, scraping, clawing, violent. A deep double hoot came from his left and Draco jumped away from it. He slammed his back against a tree, boots scrabbling in the slick leaves. "Bulstrode!"

Draco fought for breath, shadows dancing around the clearing as his wand-hand shook and scribbled light in the air. It drew flashes and streaks across his eyes, blinding him from being able to see into the shadows, and he put out the light and shoved his wand into his pocket. Hands locked on the rough bark of the tree behind him, Draco stared into the clearing, his eyes wide and rolling. "Bu-Bulstrode," he muttered, then swallowed hard. "Bulstrode, where are you? Where am I?"

This time an answer came. A drawn-out howl in the distance, rising high and dropping low. Draco's eyes went even wider and he scrabbled at the bark, whimpering and panting through his nose. _Wolves_. In the shadows of the woods and the fog now flirting at his knees, Draco's mind locked on one explanation, one possibility.

Werewolf.

Draco fled.

He bolted for a path, any path. A path that led through the woods and away from the werewolf howl and the gibbering faces in the fog and the mocking hoot of owls. He slid on leaves and squelched through mud, cried out when branches slashed at his face and rocks turned under his feet, soaked his boots when he stumbled into the creek, soaked his cheeks when his eyes watered from pain and panic. A shape moved in the woods, green sparks flared towards the sky, and Draco screamed, sliding to a stop, slipping to his knees. He covered his face with his arms and keened.

The keen rose to a shriek when someone, _something_ grabbed his shoulders and shook him until his neck crackled. "Malfoy!" shouted a voice. A familiar voice. A low and husky female voice. Draco's eyes snapped open and he dragged his arms away from his face, still whimpering. Bulstrode. Millicent. Familiar Millicent, safe, and with a look in her eyes that showed a strange mix of exasperation and concern. "Draco, are you all right?" She released his shoulders and caught his face in her hands, her thumb stroking across his cheek in a line that stung, tracing a cut from a branch. "Fuck's sake, Malfoy, what happened? I stopped to get a rock out of my shoe and I looked up and you were gone."

"Millicent." Draco sniffed, scrubbing a hand across his eyes, ashamed that he'd been seen, _caught_, in his wild flight. "I got lost. And-and-and disoriented. And I heard this ... this howling." He took a deep breath, exhaled it with an audible quiver. "Thought it was.... No matter. It was stupid. Just got a bit confused, that's all."

He set his jaw and looked at her outline in the darkness. "I'm fine. Let go of me."

Millicent eyed him for a moment, then snorted and got to her feet without a word. She moved down the path, then stopped. "Get up if you're coming, or I'm leaving you here for the wolves."

Draco scrambled to his feet and bolted to her, grabbing onto her hand. He flushed, grateful for the darkness that hid the color in his cheeks, and Millicent led him out of the woods with nothing more than a squeeze to his fingers.

> Agrimony:  
> Powdered agrimony, burned as an incense at night, encourages sleep and soothes mental discomfort, easing inner voices and healing the emotions.

Sweat stuck his hair to his nape and his pyjamas to his thighs. Draco sat up in bed, shivering, staring out the window. The moon was almost full and it stared back at him with a mocking face. Draco shivered again, his arms locked around upraised knees. Another nightmare, this time with wolves howling behind him, chasing him through the woods, saliva dripping from their fangs, blood dripping from their claws. Werewolves running him to ground. He'd had dreams like that for years, but during the war they'd grown much more frequent and much more vivid. Greyback roaming around his house hadn't helped any, and his terrified flight through the woods the previous weekend had just made things worse.

The door creaked open, a thin stream of candlelight fell across the foot of his bed, and Millicent's low voice floated in. "You were screaming again, Malfoy."

Draco rested his cheek on his knees, face turned to the window. "I know," he said, too exhausted to lie or even to care. "Go back to bed. There won't be any more tonight." He wasn't going to sleep again, not that night. Possibly not for days to come, if past experience was anything to go by.

The door clicked shut but the candlelight stayed. Draco didn't move except to tighten his arms around his knees and exhale slowly as the bed dipped. Millicent spoke in tones much quieter than her usual voice. "Are they really that bad? The nightmares? It seems like they're awful."

Draco thought about not responding, but the memory of his sixth year at Hogwarts, when Myrtle had looked at him with watery eyes and quivering lips, came to his mind. It had felt so, _so_ good to finally talk to _someone_. To get out the frustrations and the fears, just to tell someone his problems, even if that someone was a lonely, whinging ghost. Just to have someone listen. Draco took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and opened his mouth.

By the time he stammered to a rough-voiced halt, Millicent had settled beside him, rubbing his shoulders. Her hand was warm, more gentle than he'd expected. As good as it had felt to tell someone, to stop carrying that alone, it felt even better to have a tender touch in response. Draco turned his head towards Millicent. The candlelight gleamed off her hair, loose for sleep. In her faded nightgown, with her eyes soft and worried, she looked ... pretty. She'd listened without interrupting, made little compassionate sounds at the right points. She was pretty, and she'd cared, and Draco leaned over and kissed her.

Millicent froze, started to pull away, and Draco reached for her wrist, holding it gently. "Please," he murmured. "Please, Millicent. I just ... I need ... please. Don't go. Stay with me."

He thought she'd leave. He thought she'd slap him, leave, go shouting to Richter. But she searched his face, instead. He wasn't sure what she saw.

He wasn't sure it mattered.

Millicent leaned in and kissed him. Her hand smoothed up his back, toyed with the damp hair at his nape. Her lips were soft, with the faintest trace of her toothpaste still in her mouth. Maybe he moved first, maybe she did. It wasn't important. They ended up stretched out on his bed, his hand shaking on the neckline of her nightgown. He murmured 'please' again, over and over as he kissed her, not caring that he was nearly begging. She answered him with quiet shushings, ran her hand over his chest and down the long line of the scar Potter had left on his torso. His fingers slid into her nightgown and her fingers slid under his waistband. Draco laid his hand on the top of her breast, his breath catching when the tips of her nails scratched through the hair at his groin.

Millicent's legs shifted against his as she rolled to her back, and Draco pushed up onto his elbow. She tugged on the drawstring of his pyjamas, stroked her fingers over his half-full erection and encouraged it to harden more. She was all soft curves beneath him, her breast heavy in his hand, her nipple stiffening and rounded under his palm. The fullness of her body was warm and plush and arousing. He'd never thought it could be anything but mortifying to even consider shagging someone of her size, her shape, but Millicent was surprising him. He was surprising himself.

Draco bent to kiss her again, tongue sweeping across hers. She bit at his mouth, tugging his lower lip. "Off," she muttered and pulled on his waistband. "Get this off. Let's do this, Malfoy. I want this _off_."

Draco hated taking orders. He took this one with glee. He rolled, raised his hips, shoved his pyjamas off, reached for the hem of her nightgown. Millicent pushed him back into the pillows and curled around. Her mouth fastened on his cock before he realized her intent, and Draco's back arched as he bit back a cry. He didn't have a lot of experience, but as far as he could tell, she was good. She was incredible. She tugged his foreskin down with care, ran her tongue around the head and shaft of his cock, gently tugged at his bollocks. Draco couldn't stop the series of small, soft grunts that escaped him every time she sucked or licked with the slightest variation and shift of her mouth. He didn't want to stop it. She was fantastic.

Millicent rose onto her knees beside him, held herself up with one forearm on the mattress. Her other hand wrapped around the length of his cock and held it upright, angled just a little towards his stomach. He pushed up onto both elbows, watching her over the rapid movements of his chest, and he gulped for air, confused and curious over what she was planning. A hand job was perfectly all right with him, but he let out a low groan when that wasn't what he got.

She'd been moving for a better angle, and she glanced at him with a wide, knowing smile before turning her head back to his groin and sliding his cock full into her mouth. Further. Much further. Her throat opened and Draco's next groan almost rattled the window when Millicent drew him completely into her, her lips closing around the root of his cock. She swallowed, the muscles of her throat pulsed around his length, and Draco's arms slid out from under him, dropping him onto the bed. His hips moved, pressing up and back in the little range of motion he could find in their position.

Millicent's hips swayed. She reached back and pulled at her nightgown, jerked it out from under her knees, tugged it up her thighs. Draco reached to help, pushing the hem up to her hips. No knickers. None at all, and his cock twitched in her mouth at the realization. His fingers slid over the curve of her arse as she swayed, her knees widening, exposing her body for his touch. Draco pushed his hand between her thighs, felt moist heat on his fingers. The folds of her cunt were thick and damp, her arousal almost as obvious as his hardened cock. He probed, one finger seeking for her entrance, and slid in easily when he found it. She was wet, _wet_, and tight. She moaned around his cock, the vibrations pulling a matching moan from him, and her cunt tightened even more around his finger.

Draco snatched his hand free, licked his fingers, and shoved at her hip. "Now," he muttered. "Now, now, _now_." The bed shifted and creaked, the mattress dipped, pillows and sheets and nightgown hit the floor, and Draco settled between Millicent's thighs. She reached down and gripped him, guided him in with a lift of her hips. Draco held his weight on his hands, elbows locked and head hanging. The curve of Millicent's stomach prevented him from seeing his cock slide into her, but he felt it, every inch, until he was sunk in to the root. Millicent's breasts wobbled as she took a deep breath, and she brought her hands up to cradle them, push them up and rub her thumbs over her nipples.

"Higher," Draco said with a grunt. He pulled back and thrust in, the force of his movements making her breasts sway in her grip. She raised them higher, almost to her chin, and Draco bent his head, back bowing. He closed his mouth around one nipple, sucking it, rolling it against the roof of his mouth in time with each thrust. Millicent squeaked, her breath leaving her in little, audible pants.

She let go of one breast and wriggled her hand between them, her knuckles rubbing his stomach and hip, breaking his rhythm for a moment. He rolled his eyes up to watch her from under his lashes, wondering what she was _oh_. He felt the movement of her fingers, the distinct repetition of little, slick circles as she rubbed at her clit. He released her nipple and shifted his weight, pushing his torso up to give her hand more room to move. The change in angle sent the head of his cock sliding over a spongy spot in her cunt, and Millicent bucked under him with a muffled shriek.

Draco raised an eyebrow, surprised by the reaction, and gave another experimental thrust. Millicent shrieked again, her lashes fluttering, and her hand moved faster between them. A few more thrusts, a few more rubs, a few more squeaks, and a deep red flush spread across her face and down her chest. She tightened around his cock with a loud groan that rose to a scream. Draco held still at the start of her orgasm, and she shook her head wildly. "No!" She bucked her hips, pushing against him. "Fuck me."

He obeyed, fingers curling in the sheet, sweat beading on his forehead and the bridge of his nose. He fucked her. Millicent shrieked through orgasm, and Draco fucked her, his thrusts growing uneven as his own orgasm edged closer with each pulse of her body around his cock. Millicent collapsed, her hand slipped from between them, and she opened her eyes. Draco met her gaze, stared into her deep, sex-glazed eyes. "Close," he grunted. She nodded, smiling, and licked her lips as she pushed up onto her elbows to kiss him. Her cunt tightened again and Draco hissed, jerking out of her.

He collapsed onto her, head pillowed on her breasts, hips pumping against the mattress between her thighs. He came with a groan, body shaking, fists locked in the sheet. Millicent smoothed her hands over his shoulders as the tension eased out of him, patted his hair as his vision greyed and he drifted. He muttered a half-hearted apology and she shushed him again, her voice faintly amused. She laid her hand on the back of his neck, and Draco fell asleep as she hummed a quiet lullaby.

> Jasmine:  
> To raise self-esteem, alleviate depression, and open the heart, place pressed jasmine into a red pillow.

They didn't speak of it. They didn't talk about it.

But the next time he woke screaming from a nightmare, Millicent was there within minutes. She opened his door and crawled into his bed and he sank into her body and slept in her arms.

They didn't speak of it that night either. Or the night after that or after that, and the night after that didn't even require a nightmare. He knocked at her door and she let him in without a word. It changed from a reassurance to a comfort to a pleasure to an ecstasy. They spent night after night in each other's arms, in each other's beds. He learned the shape of her body, every plump curve and rounded form. He kissed her, every inch, from her narrow ankles to the Cupid's bow of her mouth, pushed her hands away from her stomach when she tried to cover the thin and silvery marks. She traced the angles of his body, ran her hands over his too-prominent ribs, trailed her fingers over the long, jagged scar on his torso and the faded, sinuous mark in his arm.

They didn't speak of it. Over meals and lab work, over research and studies, they talked, but not about that. Not about their nights. They talked about school memories and about childhood homes, they talked about favorite pets and hated colors. They talked and talked and talked and within three weeks he knew more about her than he'd learned in seven years at Hogwarts. He learned about her during the day and he learned _her_ at night.

Richter never spoke of it, either. Draco knew he had to know, knew there was no possible way that Millicent's shrieks and his ragged groans were escaping the older wizard, knew that Richter had to have seen the small circle of reddened flesh on Millicent's neck and the drooping exhaustion in his eyes that had nothing to do with insomnia. Richter never spoke of it, but the next potion he set Millicent and Draco to working on turned out to be a contraceptive. Richter spoke softer to him, with less insults, Millicent smiled and hummed as she worked, and even the kobold stopped breaking his equipment. Draco thought things were going remarkably well. They didn't _need_ to speak of it, he thought.

He thought.

Then he raised his hand to knock on her door late one night, and heard her voice through it. Her words were slightly muffled, and he guessed she was speaking into the Floo. He pressed his ear to the door and shut his eyes to listen.

"Mum, everything's fine. Work's going well. Richter's teaching me a lot." There was a long stretch of near-silence, with even quieter words in a different voice, then Draco heard Millicent sigh. He smiled, not needing to see her to know that she'd just rolled her eyes. "Yes, Mum, I'm seeing someone."

His smile dropped and his eyes snapped open, and he stared at the thin grain of the door. _Seeing someone_. It rolled in his head, echoing around his mind, blocking out every other sound and every other sense. The door opened and he fell into Millicent. She caught him around the waist, holding him up, and Draco stared at her until her brows furrowed in confusion and he said the first thing that came into his mind.

"I'm not your boyfriend."

Millicent's eyes narrowed and she released him, stepping back. He caught himself on the door frame. Millicent backed into her room until her knees hit her bed and she sank onto it. She bit her lip and pulled one of her braids over her shoulder to tug off the elastic at the end. "You were listening?" Draco nodded and Millicent ran her fingers into her braid, loosening the twisted strands. "I just told her that to shut her up. I know we're not _dating_, Malfoy. We're just lovers."

Draco shook his head.

Millicent's hands slowed, then stilled on her hair, and her head tipped as her face blanked. Her expression chilled, except for her gaze, which burned. Draco wanted to flinch away from her eyes, but he held his ground, even though he felt the muscles tightening in his jaw. "We're not lovers, Bulstrode. We're not ... I'm not...." Draco took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Lovers are people who, you know, people who are in love. I don't love you. We're just ... shagging. It's just sex."

He didn't need Legilimency to see her thoughts. They flashed through her eyes as fast as a Snitch. Draco wanted to take it back, wanted to apologize and retract everything he'd just said, wanted to do anything that would soften the pain that made her eyes gleam and quiver like moonlight on water. He opened his mouth to do just that, and Millicent moved, flinging her braid over her shoulder and standing up. "Yeah," she said, her voice flat. She brushed her hand across her eyes and when she looked at him again they were empty. "Yeah. You're right. That's all we are. That's all this is. All it ever was."

Her eyes were empty, far too empty. They reminded him of the eyes he'd seen every time he looked into a mirror the months he'd spent on his assignment, the blank, dead look of someone trying to hide. Draco took a step forward, his hand extended. Millicent stared at it as if he'd just tried to hand her a venomous snake and after several seconds, he dropped it back to his side. "Bulstrode. Er. _Millicent_. I didn't--"

"I think you should leave, Malfoy."

Draco tugged at his collar, pushed his hair out of his eyes, rubbed the back of his neck. "Millicent."

"Get _out_, Malfoy. Now." She turned her back on him and sat at her dressing table to finish undoing her braids and run a brush through her hair. Draco stood at the door, pulling it shut slowly. He watched through the crack in the door as he closed it, held his breath and watched as Millicent's brush stopped moving and her shoulders started to shake.

Draco shut the door, holding it carefully to keep it from making any noise, and trudged down the corridor to his room. At his door, he looked towards hers, his lower lip caught between his teeth. His mind tried to force his legs to carry him back, tried to force his mouth to form 'I'm sorry', but nothing happened. All he could do was walk into his room and shut the door. He couldn't speak.

> Lovage:  
> Steep the leaves of lovage in boiling water, drain, and carry in a pouch  
> close to the heart to open and attract the eyes of a partner.

Draco feigned illness for the next two days, refused to leave his room, refused to go anywhere into the house where he might run into Millicent. He couldn't bring himself to face her with the memory of her hurt eyes and quivering shoulders still in his mind. As much as he tried, the image wouldn't leave him. He saw it in his dreams, playing on the backdrop of his closed lids, saw it in his waking hours, replaying over and over like a bone-crunching play in a heart-breaking Quidditch match.

Finally Richter came up himself, came into the room and shoved a tonic and a long list at him. "Get your arse out of bed and get down to the village. We're low on supplies and I'm not paying you to sulk." Richter left with a slam of the door before Draco could answer. He stared at it for a minute, then sighed and crawled out of bed. Leaving his room wasn't optimal, but leaving the house meant less chance of running into Millicent. He got dressed and Apparated to the outskirts of the Muggle village about ten miles from Richter's house, striding in as if he'd walked the whole way.

The shopping took up a few hours, but failed to distract him from his thoughts. Millicent's full breasts, Millicent's narrow waist. Millicent's strong thighs, Millicent's plump lips. Millicent's flat voice and empty, empty eyes. Draco turned a corner into a poorly-lit and narrow street, shrank his purchases to tuck into a pocket, muttering to himself, and came up short when he saw Millicent's face in the shadows of a doorway. Millicent's face with another man's fingers on her soft, flawless skin, another man's thumb stroking the arch of her cheek. The man's back was to him, but the voice was very clear and very drunk. "C'mon, lovely. You know you want to. You and me, let's sneak off for a few. What's stoppin' you? Got a boyfriend back home?"

Draco wished desperately to be invisible as Millicent's eyes drifted over the man's shoulder and widened when she saw him. She licked her lips and swallowed audibly, then her mouth curved in a smile. A cold, empty smile. "No," she said. "Nobody. Used to fuck around with this one bloke, but he was just using me for sex. Sort of what you're after, right?" Draco shuddered at the laugh the man gave as he dropped his hand from Millicent's cheek to the curve of her breasts. Millicent's eyes hardened, but never left Draco's face. "At least you're honest about it. Let's go."

"No."

It took a second for Draco to realize that he'd been the one who'd spoken. When it caught up to him, he said it again. "No." And again. "No."

Millicent stood frozen, her eyes wide. The man turned around to give him a boozy, bleary glare. "Kid. Fuck off."

"_No_!" Draco shoved past this-this-this _bastard_, and stood between him and Millicent. "No. She's taken. _You_ fuck off." He winced as Millicent jabbed him in the back, but stood his ground, moving only to reach back and wrap his arm around Millicent's waist. She pried at his hand and he locked his fingers in the side of her shirt. "She's taken. By me. Fuck off. Unless you'd like me to call the authorities and have you hauled off for assaulting a minor while intoxicated."

"He's lying. I'm not taken, I'm not a minor, and that _wasn't_ assault." Millicent jabbed him in the ribs this time and Draco hissed.

The drunk gave them a quizzical look, shrugged, and sneered, turning away with his posture practically screaming that it wasn't worth the effort. Draco bristled as the man spit on the pavement and laughed with a nasty echo. "Don't want a fat bitch anyway."

His wand was out and pointed before his mind could scream _Muggle_. Millicent gripped his wrist and jerked his arm to his side, rising up on the balls of her feet to growl against his ear. "You _want_ to get hauled off yourself? All that effort you spent staying out of Azkaban and you feel like getting taken to a _Muggle_ prison? Put your fucking wand away and count yourself lucky that he's drunk enough to think this is some sort of hallucination." She shoved him away and stalked down the street, dark hair and dark clothes blending into the shadows.

Draco followed and caught her up, snatching at her arm. "Millicent, please."

"I hate to be late to the party, but _fuck off_. I'm not interested. If you're looking to get laid, go find someone else. You already had me fooled." She yanked her arm out of his grip and folded her arms under her breasts, walking with her head bowed and her shoulders hunched. "Fuck the fat girl because she'll let you. Don't think you're the first one, Malfoy. Just the next in the queue. There'll be plenty after you, don't you worry. You're nothing special to the girl with nothing special going on. Just sex."

Draco stopped in the middle of the pavement, hands shoved in his pockets. Millicent's words were a bitter-sharp contrast to the aching tone in her voice, and he struggled to find words that might wrap that sharpness in cotton and pack it away. "Millicent, that's not what I meant. That's not what I meant at all. You know that's not how it happened."

She kept walking, but she slowed, and Draco found that promising until she turned, wand out. She fired a series of Stinging hexes at him, making him dance and dodge and stammer half-choked demands for her to stop. She shrieked, her hair almost floating around her with sparks of magic. "No _apologies_, Malfoy. You did mean it, that _is_ how it happened, and I'm not going to absolve you. Hide in your room for the next two _years_ for all I care. Be guilty. Be incredibly guilty!" Her voice rose and a whirlwind of hexes stung his face and upraised, blocking hands. "Think about something, someone else for once in your life!"

> Chamomile:  
> Create a tisane of chamomile for relaxation and calm;  
> sprinkle on still water to soothe fighting couples.

They didn't speak of it. They didn't speak for days. Draco kept silent, kept to himself, but not through his own volition. He tried to talk to Millicent, tried to apologize, to explain. She wouldn't let him. Every time he spoke to her, she turned away; every time he said her name, she left the room. She went on long, long walks, ostensibly under Richter's instructions to hunt down ingredients for potions, but Draco suspected it was just to get out of the house and away from him.

After two weeks of silence and avoidance and long walks, Draco's patience broke. He sneaked down the stairs one night, a Silencing charm placed on each step to keep any creaks from waking Millicent, Richter, or the kobolds. He smeared the contents of a small bottle on the heels of Millicent's hiking boots and nodded as the pale blue liquid dried and faded invisibly. He didn't know where Millicent went on her walks, but a little phosphorescent potion and a revealing charm would let him follow her at a safe distance and time.

In the morning, he waited until Millicent had been gone for at least an hour, then followed her trail through the woods behind Richter's house. It took him three hours to run her to ground, three hours of jumping at every snapped twig or rustled leaf in the brush and undergrowth around him. Millicent's magic-induced footprints led through a section of the woods that he didn't recognize - not that he recognized any of it. All trees were trees as far as he was concerned. As interchangeable as Hufflepuffs, really.

Distracted with his imagination turning all the trees into twisted, leafy Hufflepuffs, he almost missed the drop-off, the turn in the path that led down through a cleft between layers of rock. He tracked Millicent's footprints through thick mud and over pebbles and leaves, one hand pressed to the rocks beside him to keep him from slipping and finding the end of the path through a painful and undignified fall. He followed the path around a twist and a turn, the sounds of leaves and small creatures in the underbrush changing to the gurgle and splash of a water source. Creek, river, he didn't know. Could have been an ocean for all he knew. His main concern was that water would make it near-impossible for him to track Millicent.

For a moment he wondered if she knew that he'd rubbed that potion on her boots, if she knew that he'd decided to follow her that day and had decided to go stomping through water just to throw him off and leave him lost in the woods again. He abandoned that idea almost as soon as he'd thought it. More than one of their conversations before things went all to hell had been about the day they'd gone hunting for blackberries and he'd got so lost and confused. She _knew_ he was uncomfortable in the woods, knew he could get upset and frightened. More than that, she knew why. Millicent wasn't _cruel_. She could be rude, she could be mean, she could be insulting, but Millicent was never cruel. She left that to him.

Draco stumbled out of the trees at the edge of a clearing, a wide and open space in the trees with a large pool at one side. No sign of Millicent, but under one of the trees nearby was a pile of clothes topped with a familiar pair of hiking boots. Draco crouched beside them, idly poking at the folds of the material, examining what Millicent had left there. Everything from shirt to socks, but in a discovery that made him raise an eyebrow, no knickers whatsoever. She hadn't worn them the night he first slept with her, either, or any night after, and Draco remembered how gleeful he'd been to discover that little hint of sensual rebellion about her. It was as unexpected as anything else, and it had intrigued him more than he had been willing to admit. A splashing sound brought his head up, and he looked at the pool to see Millicent breaching the surface, her hair flung back in an arc that sprayed water clear to the shoreline. She didn't see him, he thought, because she didn't shout or duck back under the water.

Draco leaned against the tree, one knee bent up and the other leg extended. He held her shirt, running a sleeve between his fingers. It was oddly soft material, warm despite the lightness, the fineness of the fabric. It was rather like Millicent herself. What he saw wasn't what was actually there. What looked like a heavy, shapeless nothing was lovely, curvy warmth. Had a crooked smile and shining eyes and hair that he couldn't stop remembering spread out across a pillow. Had a body that stirred his imagination and his erections. Had a mind that challenged him and a laugh that made his heart pound.

Seeing someone. That's exactly what he'd needed to do. See her properly. And he had, and he'd got scared of it, surprised by it, and he'd ruined it by being stupid, by opening his mouth and saying what he hadn't meant. Draco sighed and looked at the pool again. Millicent wasn't in it. He sat up slightly, looking for her with his pulse racing, afraid for a moment that she'd slipped under and was in trouble, but then a rustle at the tall grass snapped his head around. Millicent strode up the rise, hips and breasts swaying with every step. She spotted him and froze, just for a breath, then he saw her shoulders firm up and she approached him.

"Hand that over," she said, pointing at the shirt he had bunched up in his lap. Draco shook his head and Millicent put both hands on her wide hips. "Don't have time for your games, Malfoy. Don't have the energy for it. I'm not going to stand here naked to talk to you, and I'm not particularly interested in talking to you at all anyway, so hand it over."

"Not until you talk to me." Draco looked up at her, at the body he'd become intimately familiar with, at the eyes that could heat up and ice over between one word and the next. He set her shirt aside and reached for the collar of his own. Millicent's nose wrinkled up and she stared at him. Before she could open her mouth, he held up his free hand. "I like seeing you naked. But I'm not going to have you stand there like that with me all dressed. Not hardly fair, is it?"

"You don't like seeing me naked, you bastard." Millicent's words contrasted with the humor in her voice. His heart raced as she just stood there, watching Draco stand to strip down without protest. She was willing to hear him out. _Thank god_, he thought, unaccountably relieved. This trip wasn't wasted. When his trousers hit the ground and he struggled to get out of his boots without falling over, she laughed. He looked up to see her shaking her head. "Fuck, you're pale. Never noticed before, always saw you in the dark. Don't you ever get any sun?"

"I burn easily." Draco kicked his clothes away and stood in front of Millicent, his arms spread wide. "There. Now we're even. Now you can steal my clothes or shove me into the pond there or whatever you feel like doing. I'd appreciate it if you'd listen to me first, though. Hear me out."

"You get points for persistence, but I'm deducting them all for annoyance value." Millicent shook her head at him and turned, walking toward the pool and calling back over her shoulder. "You have a very bizarre obsession with catching me naked in the water, by the way. Don't think I haven't noticed. Swim and talk, Malfoy."

They sank into the pond, silent for a few minutes except for Draco's gasps and protestations about the cold and about shrinkage. Millicent splashed him several times before he finally shut up and just swam. He swam to her as she floated on her back and treaded water beside her. She kept her face pointed at the sky, eyes closed. "Millicent, will you please let me apologize? For-for, um. For what I said that night? About it just being sex. It wasn't. That's not what I meant. I mean, it _was_ just sex in a way." She kicked her feet and he laid one hand on her stomach. She stilled with a vexed sigh as he continued. "_Please_, Millicent. I mean I thought it was just sex. But then I figured out that it wasn't. We weren't doing just that. We were making friends. We were talking a lot. And-and I really liked talking to you. I liked getting to know you, and yeah, I'll admit, I liked getting sex. I won't lie about that. But it wasn't just that."

Millicent's hair spread across the surface of the pool and wrapped around his arm as he shifted to float beside her. Closing his eyes against the sun, he took her hand to keep from drifting away from her, and, he admitted to himself, because he wanted to touch her. "It wasn't just sex. I liked getting to know you, and then I figured out that I _liked_ you. Didn't figure it out until I'd upset you, though, and I realized that I missed talking to you more than I missed sleeping with you. And fuck, I know I'm messing this all up, I'm no good with speeches. I just...." Draco sighed and flicked his fingers in the water. "I want to try again. I want to take that back. You're actually really pretty and I quite like you and I'm still not in love with you but I thought maybe if you wanted to try giving it all an actual go, I'd quite like that too."

He nearly sank from the effort of refilling his lungs with air after he said all that in one long, hurried breath. Millicent stayed silent, floating next to him as quietly as a leaf on the water. She pulled her hand from his and laced her fingers together over her stomach. Draco tipped his head, keeping one eye closed to keep water out of it, and looked at her through spiky, clumped lashes. "Millicent?"

Millicent spun and ducked under the water with a great splashing, movements and currents sending Draco shoved away from her with water filling his nose. He coughed, sank, got his ankles caught in kelp at the bottom of the pool, and by the time he was free and his eyes were cleared, Millicent was gone along with her clothes. And with his.

> Tansy:  
> Sew crushed and powdered leaves and roots into a purple cloth  
> and carry in your shoe to promote longevity and healing.

Draco stood over his work table, sniffling and wiping his nose on the sleeve of his robes. He couldn't step away long enough to have a sneezing fit, as much as the itch in his nose made him want it. The potion was delicate, and the slightest hesitation in his stirring would ruin it entirely. A cold was no excuse for destroying three days worth of work. Richter's kobold sat on the end of his table, trimming its toenails with a small knife and singing quietly in German. Draco didn't understand a word, but the tune was familiar enough. Something about the month of May, a farmer's daughter, and a stocking garter.

He turned his head to sneeze, three quick _chffs_ in succession. Ever since the day Barty Crouch had transformed him to that ferret, Draco's sneezes had been close enough to those of some small, adorable creature that he couldn't stand to have anyone hear him. Every winter at Hogwarts, he'd stuffed himself so full of Pepper-up Potions and various vitamins and preventative brews that he'd spent half his classes in a haze. The kobold giggled at him, and Draco made a face at it, still stirring. Three deosil, three widdershins, pause for fifteen seconds. Repeat.

The potion bubbled and swirled, almost splashing out of the cauldron, and Draco watched it carefully, waiting for the dark green liquid to lighten. When it turned to a bright, spring-grass green, he'd add the powdered apple seeds and then--

The kobold dumped a tiny handful of toenail clippings into the cauldron.

Draco swore and jumped back as the mixture turned to a muddy orange and congealed into a custard. He turned to give the kobold a tirade that Snape would have considered a little strongly-worded, but the creature had jumped off the table and scampered for the door, disappearing between Millicent's ankles and out of the room. Draco clenched his jaw and exhaled sharply, blowing his fringe out of his eyes, then turned back to his cauldron to clean it out and avoid Millicent's amused eyes. "He did that just for the hell of it," he muttered. "I haven't been dumping the nightly milk or taking away any of their treats. I've been nice to them. Well." He rolled his eyes and wiped his stirring rod off with a flannel. "Nicer."

"They like me better than you. Being nicer to me might help." Millicent cocked a hip against his work table and held a steaming cup of tea out to him. "For your cold."

Draco hesitated before accepting the cup with a dip of his head. If she'd poisoned it, he had a bezoar in the top drawer of his work table. He didn't think she had, though. They'd gone back to the interactions they'd had before she'd come into his room that night, before they'd become temporary lovers, but with a _little_ more friendliness. Not as much as he'd hoped, but some. It was a start.

A restart. He'd see what happened.

"So, Malfoy." Millicent released her braids from the clip at the back of her head, and pulled one over her shoulder to toy with the elastic at the end. "I don't have the patience to wait around and see what happens."

Draco choked on his tea, sputtering as he wondered if Millicent could read his mind. If she could, he was in a lot of trouble for the daydream he'd had the day before regarding him, her, a bowl of cream, and a lot of heavy breathing. Millicent pounded him on the back until he could breathe again, and her hand stayed on him, resting on his shoulder. The tip of her finger brushed against the side of his neck, then she pulled her hand away and folded her arms under her breasts with a cough.

"I don't like playing games, Malfoy. Either we're screwing around, y'know, just screwing, which if that's what you want, fine, whatever. Don't mind having some steady sex and my hand gets tired out from time to time. But that's not enough for me for the long term. If you just want a fuck, then you had that and we're done. Go find someone else to get a leg over. I'm looking for dating or seeing each other or something in that nature, whatever you want to call it. Includes sex in the bargain, but there's got to be some actual dates in the process. Dinners out, that sort of thing." She leaned against the table and Draco ignored the protesting creak it made. "Not _just_ shagging. Now I know most blokes have some sort of inherent revulsion to being seen with a fat girl out in public, believe me, I'm plenty familiar with it. So just tell me right now if you're just after getting laid again so I can stop getting my hopes up after that little speech you gave a few days ago."

Draco'd felt something tighten in his throat at 'revulsion', and it tightened further at the sad, quiet tone at the end of Millicent's speech. _So I can stop getting my hopes up._ He sipped his tea to try and clear his throat, to moisten his mouth enough to speak. "Millicent. I, er. I wasn't just talking out my arse, then. Wasn't trying to talk you into taking up shagging again." He flushed that embarrassing, delicate pink that he'd never outgrown. "I mean, that's part of it, yeah. I won't lie. I really like sleeping with you. At first, it was just ... comforting, you know. Something a little life-affirming after those nightmares. But then it got _good_. It got fun. I was looking forward to it. Looking forward to having breakfast together and working on potions together and slagging off Richter together and all that. It wasn't just the sex, it was everything else around that. And, er. Well, all right, I'll admit I was a little thrown when I heard you tell your mum or whoever it was that you were seeing somebody because I hadn't really been thinking of it in those terms, but it kind of was. It was going that way, at least. I just got a little freaked to hear someone, hear _you_ say it before I was ready to say it, and I got stupid, and I'm sorry. I really am."

He drifted to a halt, stammering over words that he didn't know how to say. Millicent was staring at him with her eyes narrowed and her shoulders tense. She looked like she was waiting for her broom to drop out of the sky and for the Bludger to smash into her sternum and steal her breath. Draco set down his tea and slowly reached out to touch her shoulder, ready to jerk away from her in an instant if she even looked like she was going to protest. She didn't. She leaned into his hand and ducked her head, staring at the floor. Draco thought she was going to say nothing, then her frame shook and she laughed under her breath. "You are absolute bollocks at explaining yourself."

"Yeah, I know. Never really had to before. Never really wanted to." Draco rubbed her shoulder gently, then leaned in to rest his forehead against her temple. "Give me another chance?"

Millicent rolled her eyes and unfolded her arms. She plucked his hand off her shoulder and squeezed his fingers, then let him go and stepped away. She was at the door before she stopped, and Draco held his breath as she turned to look at him. "I'll think about it."

> Violet:  
> Offering the virtues of serenity and peace,  
> violet sprinkled in a bath is a source of good fortune to women.

Draco opened the door to the bathroom and leaned on the door frame, flourishing a parchment covered on both sides with an elegant, flowing handwriting. "Letter from Mum," he said, skimming a couple of lines before looking to the mound of bubbles and Millicent in the tub. "How's your apprenticeship going, how's Richter treating you, are you still fighting with that girl, are you seeing anyone, so on and so forth. The usual questions." He stepped into the bathroom and shut the door behind him, then drew up a stool beside the tub, taking a deep, floral-scented breath. "So the ones about the apprenticeship and Richter, those I can answer on my own. The others, well. Little more difficult."

The bubbles moved and Millicent's head rose from under the surface like Leviathan. She rubbed bubbles off her face and out of her hair, then blinked at Draco. "What?"

Draco rolled his eyes and held the parchment up, keeping it out of the bubbles with some effort. "Questions from my mum. She wants to know if we're still fighting. Not entirely certain how to answer that. I mean, we argue a lot, but we're not necessarily _fighting_. Not like before. I can't remember the last time you threw something at me."

Millicent's eyes narrowed and she thumped both hands onto the sides of the tub, pushing herself upright. Water sloshed out the end and over the side. Draco looked down and sighed as he folded up the parchment and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. He'd liked those boots. "It's a simple question, Bulstrode."

"We're not fighting," she said, her voice full of grumbles. "I'll agree to that much. And count yourself lucky that I _will_ agree to that much, or you'd be in a hurting for interrupting my bath. What the hell is it with you, anyway? Why do you keep breaking in on me while I'm bathing? The tub, the pond, what _is_ it with you?"

Draco let his eyes travel down the length of the tub, examining as much of her as he could see through the bubbles. The top curve of her breasts, the plump and dimpled knees, the long, purple-nailed toes curled over the end of the tub. He smiled, slowly, as he looked back up to her face. "I like seeing you wet, what can I say?" She made a face and splashed him for the deep spin of innuendo he put on the words, but Draco just laughed. "You're more relaxed when you're bathing. You look happier. You've a great smile. Should show it off more."

Millicent shook her head, but didn't splash him again. "I'm lighter in the water, is what it is. Move easier."

"You move plenty easy," he informed her, trailing one hand in the water. "You're graceful, even if you don't think so. And surprisingly flexible." He drew his fingers over her thigh at that, smiling. Millicent had demonstrated that flexibility several times for him, twining her legs around his hips and showing off positions that he didn't know _any_ woman could get into, much less one that large. It was beyond entertaining, beyond arousing.

"Flattery gets you nowhere, Malfoy, you should know that by now." Millicent tipped her head back on the tub, took a deep breath that sent her breasts floating up through the bubbles. Draco focused on them as fully as he'd ever focused on a Snitch, thinking about the night before and the hour he'd spent paying homage to her nipples, licking and suckling each until Millicent was on the verge of orgasm just from that alone. His cock twitched against the placket of his trousers, and he brought his eyes up to Millicent's face as she talked to keep himself from thinking too much about it. Those trousers were a little tight. "So, yeah, I suppose, you can tell your mum we're not fighting anymore. Work together fine, all that rot."

"What about the rest?"

Millicent grumbled and stretched her legs, propping her heels on the edge of the tub. "Dunno. You haven't taken me on any dates. Don't know if I feel like counting that."

"Richter won't let us go long enough to _have_ a date. Hardly my fault." Draco shifted his stool to the end of the tub and took a flannel off a nearby shelf. He rubbed soap into the flannel and dragged it over Millicent's feet. She made a little sound that he knew was a disguised, ticklish giggle, but didn't pull her feet away. "I bought you a drink last time we went down to the village for supplies. Defended your honor against that drunk. _Again_, might I add, and you didn't hex me for it this time."

Millicent shrugged one shoulder, her eyes locked on her hands as she played with the bubbles. "Maybe. You're not putting a whole lot of effort into this, though. It's all the same as it was before. We talk, we fuck, and that's about it." Her fingers twisted together and her voice lowered. "Don't know what you'd call this, call me. Don't even know what to call you."

Draco dropped the flannel into the tub and leaned forward, his arms folded on the cool porcelain. "Call it what you told your mum that one time. Seeing someone. Because, y'know, I thought we were sort of seeing each other even if we weren't actually going out on dates. As mentioned, Richter's fault. Even if the bastard does know we're up to something, I think it amuses him to make us work a little harder in hopes of getting weekends free. But ignoring that, like I said. Thought we were.... Well, um. See, now you've got me all fucked up. I was _planning_ to write Mum back and tell her I've a girlfriend." Millicent stiffened, her eyes flicking to his in startled confusion, and Draco laid one hand on her ankle for reassurance. "If you want that."

She gave him a long, steady look, the corners of her mouth twitching as if she wanted to smile, but was afraid to try it. Draco held his breath, waiting to see if his efforts were for nothing. "Do something for me first."

Draco tipped his head as Millicent touched her lower lip. Grinning, he moved around the tub and knelt up beside it. He braced one hand on the tub and leaned over to kiss her, closed mouth to closed mouth, then parted his lips to brush his tongue over hers. He entreated, he urged, and she opened for him, let him in. He kissed her, she kissed him, and when she sank her teeth into his lip and tugged, he whimpered and she laughed. "All right," she murmured, releasing him. "We'll give it a go. Break my heart and I'll break your legs. For starters."

Draco licked his lip, smiling at the light swelling he could already feel, and shrugged. "Sounds fair to me."

> Dragon's Blood and Meadowsweet:  
> Mix together, using your intuition, until the blend _feels_ right.  
> Energize with desire to promote peace, happiness, and love.


End file.
